Passover

The 49 days from Passover to Shavuot have a counting practice paired with qualities for personal development paired with them. A fully explained, full-color Omer Calendar is attached for you to feel free to print and use.

This Torah portion is largely concerned with laws of bodily purity. The descriptions of bodily secretions and infections remind us that the kohanim, the priests, were the first dermatologists and infectious disease practitioners. How can you tell what is pure, tahor and what is impure, tamei? Tazria, as it is called, is the least popular Torah reading in the entire year’s cycle.

Passover, Pesach is a holy opera of spirit for which we prepare by cleaning and resetting the stage of our lives. different dishes, special foods, and a whole program called the seder (order) found in a book that is updated throughout the generations-- the Haggadah. This is lest we forget the gift inherent in creation's possibilities--and that gift is freedom!

When almost all your congregants raise their hands to the question "Do you have a Christmas tree up this season in your home?" it's quite unsettling for a rabbi. This happened to me back in 1989 in a rural pulpit. The Hanukkah-Christmas dilemma full-blown. What to do, if anything?

A creative program came to mind during a night of troubled dreams. The president of the congregation, ever a supporter of my tendency towards R&D on behalf of the Jewish future, organized everything perfectly to my specifications. And the congregants came, almost all of them.